European Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson today blamed the United States for the collapse of global free trade talks, saying all others were ready to make the needed concessions.
"The United States was unwilling to accept or indeed to acknowledge the flexibility shown by others," Mr Mandelson told journalists.
European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson speaks during a news. Photograph: Reuters
The Global free trade talks, billed as a once in a generation chance to boost growth and ease poverty, collapsed after nearly five years of haggling and resuming them could take years.
"The WTO negotiations are suspended," Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told journalists. When asked how long the suspension could last, he replied: "Anywhere from months to years."
The suspension of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha round came after major trading powers failed in a last-ditch bid to overcome differences on reforming world farm trade, which lies at the heart of the round.
The round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, stumbled from the start over how far rich nations would go to dismantle their huge farm subsidies and open up their markets.
Fourteen hours of talks between the so-called G6 - the US the EU, Brazil, Australia, Japan and India - yielded no breakthrough on Sunday on the question.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel
The European Union and India firmly pointed the finger at the United States for the final breakdown, saying that Washington had been demanding too high a price for cutting into the some $20 billion it spends annually on farm subsidies.
Accusing the United States of "stone-walling," Mr Mandelson said: "Surely the richest and strongest nation in the world, with the highest standards of living, can afford to give as well as take."
But the United States was adamant neither the EU nor India had been prepared to offer the sort of access to their markets that Washington needs to make a deal on subsidies worthwhile.
It has said all along it preferred no deal to one that brought it no new business.
"Unfortunately as we went through the layers of loopholes ... we discovered that a couple of our trading partners were more interested in loopholes than they were in market access," said U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.
Despite the debacle, all members of the G6 said that they remained committed to the multilateral trading system and to completing the Doha round, even if they could not say how or when the negotiations could be revived.
"It is a big failure. Whether it is going to be definitive only time will tell," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.